I’m a software engineer at Microsoft. As part of my job, I use git everyday for version control, I do some writing in markdown for readme files and technical design docs, and I work on the Pipelines product for Azure DevOps. As I started writing notes for the mini-campaign that I was running for my […]
Earlier this week, I had an idea for an alternative to the stunt mechanic in the AGE system that I’m interested in trying out at some point. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the AGE system, stunts are that system’s analog to critical hits and they are one of my favorite parts of […]
In a post a couple of months ago, I mentioned that my brother and I were working on a kaiju vs. mecha game inspired by Pacific Rim. We used the rules for BattleTech as a starting point and then whittled away a bunch of the complexities to try to get to a simpler core system. Our […]
The other day, a couple of friends were discussing how frustrating it was to end up with an unconscious character during a game. Once that happens, you usually end up sitting on the sidelines until another member of the party manages to find time to spend an action or two to get you back in […]
Recently I’ve been thinking about how the stories of various mediums and how those stories compare to the stories that role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons are designed to tell. One pattern that I’ve noticed, particularly in television shows, is that the heroes are often initially overwhelmed by a new villain and need to take time to […]
Rock, paper, scissors is a simple game, but it can provide inspiration for more involved game mechanics. The first interesting concept is that each possible move is equal to the others. No matter whether you choose rock, paper, or scissors, you have the same odds of winning assuming that your opponent picks randomly. Second, the […]
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